


This Here is Not Singing; I'm Just Screaming in Tune

by Star_dancer54



Series: Sympathy [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author has a lot of problems with the show's take on the battle of Sodden Hill, Author has done a lot of research that probably won't even wind up in the story, Author has feelings about The Amazing Devil and will share them damnit, Author plans to FIX the problems in the battle of Sodden Hill, BAMF bards ftw, Birds, Don't copy to another site, Even in a fantasy medieval setting, Gen, Geralt of Rivia is bad at feelings, If you have a battle you should have at least a medic's tent, Introspection, Jaskier has his shit together, Jaskier is more competent than you are, Jaskier is tactile as hell with his loved ones, Jaskier's righteous fury at oblivious witchers, Jaskier's voice is definitely a weapon of mass destruction, Lovecraftian Monster(s), M/M, Male/Female Friendships, Mentions of other witcher schools, Old magical instruments may be slightly sentient, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Oxenfurt Academy Underground Revolutionaries, Preparation for War, Seriously where were the healers or medics, Shan-Kayan's powers stretch farther than you'd think, Slow Burn, Some bards have magic and will live 'til they're killed fight me, references to past torture, so many fucking birds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23192065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_dancer54/pseuds/Star_dancer54
Summary: After Geralt leaves for Cintra, things start happening quickly. Warnings, dreams, omens; they all point to war on the horizon, and the only way to survive is to know who to ask for help.“Fuck.” The word's ripped out like a hard cough.Magdalena lets out a throaty laugh. “You weren't ready for him, were you, songbird?”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Original Female Character(s), Jaskier | Dandelion & Triss Merigold
Series: Sympathy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655260
Comments: 95
Kudos: 260





	1. Not While By You I Stand and Hum

**Author's Note:**

> And here's the sequel to Stranger than Your Sympathy, this time told from Jaskier's pov. Picks up shortly after Geralt leaves the tavern... which still does not have a name. 
> 
> Title taken from The Amazing Devil's Farewell Wanderlust.
> 
> Once again, thanks to my very patient sister for being willing to wrangle my huge paragraphs and my love of semicolons.

Jaskier is still sitting on the desk when Magdalena comes in, watching the construct melt. He glances up without worry – the quiet little bells that would alert him of enemies approaching are still. He studies her and feels something in his chest ease. 

She hasn't changed out of her ruby and gold-colored performing garb yet – her upper arms are still scandalously uncovered in a way that would get her tsked at on the streets. Her elbow-length gloves are stage lace – if one isn't looking closely enough, it almost looks real – and is neatly tied on the underside to make them fit as if made for her. Her lips are still the bright red only seen on poisonous things in nature. The lip tint is perfect after all the singing, though he can see that the heavy kohl around her eyes is starting to blur. She flashes him a smile and he can't help but return it for a moment. His smile fades as soon as he remembers the last person in the room.

“Is he gone?” he asks. 

He listens as Magdalena hums in response and finishes off the last of the blackberries before taking a cloth from the desk and wiping the inside of the bowl clean. She then flips it over, revealing a dark mirror in the hollow underside. The reflected light catches him in the eye as she sets it down and he watches her movements. She runs her fingertip around the edge of the mirror before singing her spell.

“Oh, let the world come at you, love  
Like distant toms a-drumming  
Love, run! The song you know's begun.”

The mirror chimes and Jaskier can't help but glance down at the spelled glass. The surface of the mirror ripples like a stone dropped in the middle of a lake and they both breathe a slow breath of relief. 

“Fuck.” The word's ripped out like a hard cough.

Magdalena lets out a throaty laugh. “You weren't ready for him, were you, songbird?” She leans against him, her hip propped against the desk. 

“Not in the slightest,” he agrees, resting his head beside hers. They curl up with one another like two lonely alley cats. One of her arms snakes around his waist and he inhales the smell of her hair. “Did you get a good look at him?” 

“Mm, yes, Lovely bone structure, your witcher.” She nudges him with the side of her head. “Looked like a kicked dog, though. I take it you had something to do with that?”

He sighs in response. “As soon as he came in, the bells started ringing. I was expecting another fucking assassin, not the bastard who tried to rip my heart out on a mountaintop.”

“And how'd the new charm work out?” Her free hand heads towards his navel and he flinches away.

“Still sore as hell, thank you very much. But the damned thing did work.” He presses his palm gently around the ring piercing his navel, feels the tiny bells hanging from it. “It was a strong enough vibration to feel, and weak enough that I don't think he even noticed it.”

“Hmm, that's right – witcher senses.” She laces her gloved fingers through Jaskier's, squeezing gently. “Well, I'll be letting the Grasper know that the test run was successful.”

He squeezes her fingers back. “Thank you.” He starts to pull away but she reels him back in with the arm around his waist. 

“I'm not done with you yet, my lad.”

He lets out a soft amused noise and settles against her again. “Oh, really? How may I be of service, my lady?”

Magdalena hums for a moment, then untangles their fingers. She retrieves a folded piece of parchment from where it was tucked under her chemise, held in place by the strap of her kirtle. “He left this for you.”

Jaskier takes it with a faintly amused smile. His dear friend has a dreadful tendency to tuck things everywhere except in her actual belt pouches, and this was no exception. He begins to unfold the parchment. A whiff of both her hard sweat from the set earlier and the smell of leather and horse that anything of Geralt's catches after mere seconds in his care rises to his nose. 

It is an... interesting odor, but Jaskier's amusement fades as he reads the note.

_I have no desire to impose on you further, but I thought that this might prove helpful to you in the future. I know now that you're much better able to protect yourself than I first assumed. With the war coming however, I thought any extra bit of protection would be useful._

_More than anything, I want to make sure that the people I care about are safe, and while I have been terrible about expressing it, I count you as one of those people. I hope we meet again, and that by then I can prove myself to be a more worthy companion._

_Be safe. Please._

“Oh, you bastard,” Jaskier breathes. He blinks hard for a moment and thinks about just how his twenty-five year old self would have responded to such a declaration. 

He would have been a mess. To be honest, he probably would have been a mess no matter how old he was if Geralt had actually spoken the words. As it is, he can tell that the spiky, carefully-printed words – had he ever seen Geralt's handwriting before? - will be seared in his mind for years to come. 

Magdalena laughs softly. “Such a complete and utter sod, clearly.” She nudges him with the pouch that appeared in her hand as he'd read the note. “This was the other thing he left for you.”

He sets the note aside on the desk and takes the pouch. He can feel the gentle hum of magic through the cloth, and with fingers that shake ever-so-faintly he opens it.

Silver gleams gently in the darkness, but as Jaskier hooks his fingers around the item and pulls he sees that it's not just silver. Supple leather and shining silver slides out and keeps sliding out until he has a beautiful lute strap in his hand. The leather has clearly been worked by a master – the stitches along the edge are evenly spaced, and the detail on the design is intricate without being overdone. The coin-sized silver studs are more amateur – unevenly flattened, and the symbols are irregular in their depth. They are, however, placed well, filling the spaces left by the leatherworker in an aesthetically pleasing pattern. The studs also thrum with power, and if he's not mistaken Jaskier thinks that the symbols have been darkened with blood.

It's when he looks at the strap in its entirety and he registers the repeating patterns that he has to close his eyes and focus on breathing in a slow and steady pace.

Dandelions and forget-me-nots. His favorite flowers, for all that the first is considered just a weed.

He's forcibly tugged against Magdalena's side, and only then can he tell he's shaking and weak-kneed. Did he start to fall?

“I think,” Magdalena says quietly as she adjusts her hold on his waist, “that your witcher knows you better than you thought he did.”

Jaskier rasps out a laugh. 

They sit in silence for a short while before Jaskier stirs. “Do we have any nightingales due to be retired?”

“Mmm,” Magdalena responds and releases him from her hold. “I think Horatio is. But I'd have to check with the flock tenders.”

“Please do. I have a message to send, and it's going to be a long one.”

“And what will you be doing while I play your little cockerel?” 

Jaskier chuckles at the use of Nightingale slang. “I'll be talking to the Mothers. I think we're due to move some of the more precious cargo out of Oxenfurt for the time being.”

Magdalena makes an unimpressed noise. “Yes, I'll gladly play messenger if it means not talking to the Mothers.” With one more squeeze of his shoulder, she steps away and heads for the door. “Don't forget to turn off the silencing charm.”

He hums in response, already planning what he's going to say to Geralt.

The first sign of ill wind comes a week after Geralt leaves, from a lovely juvenile sparrowhawk sent by the mage Triss Merigold. It finds him in his quarters at his desk, his song book before him and his head in his hands as he fights his brain for the perfect turn of phrase for his latest song. The raptor flies in the open window and lands clumsily on his desk, sending his quills and notes scattering. It's a welcome distraction, and Jaskier takes in a breath to blast the silly young thing away when he registers the raptor's colors and what it carries. A slim ribbon of gold – Triss' favorite color – is wrapped around one leg, and it has a small black mirror clutched in its claws. The elegant, yet graceless, raptor drops the mirror before the bard and leaves as suddenly as it arrived, knocking yet more papers and quills to the floor. 

As soon as Jaskier brushes his fingers across it the mage's image appears in the glass. Triss' hair is messier than Jaskier's ever seen it – strands stick out as if she's been running her hands through it over and over again. That added to the lack of makeup or any sort of enhancement magic is concern enough. When her first words to him are, “Have you seen Geralt?” Jaskier feels something clutch in his chest. 

Under normal circumstances, such a question wouldn't faze him in the slightest. Geralt has an unerring ability to survive for many, many years no matter how many men and monsters have tried to put him out of their misery. However, with war in the air Jaskier can't help but wonder if an army would be more successful at eliminating the witcher. 

“He was headed to Cintra, last I heard.” He tries to keep his voice level. “Why?”

Triss' eyes widen and she hisses in a breath. “I was going to tell him that Nilfgaard is approaching Cintra, and you that the Brotherhood has called a conclave.” At Jaskier's curse she nods. “You know what this means, I think better than I do. Have your birdies been speaking?”

Jaskier feels his mouth twist. “We know war is coming. The Mothers have already spoken with the few spies that have managed to get out of occupied territory.” He pauses, undecided for a moment, then continues. He is well aware that Triss holds more loyalty to her friends and family than those who trained her. “It's a genocide, and from what I've heard in whispers they plan to take the North. They conscript anyone that they can, including – maybe especially – weaker magic users. And from the sounds of what the spies have said, they...” 

He hesitates, then says it. “They've been doing something to the conscripted's minds. They're loyal to the point of insanity, and that includes any spies that have gotten close enough to see what happens. One of the spies who got away swore they saw a mage turned to ash from what had to been the overuse of their magic.”

He sees Triss swallow. She closes her eyes and speaks in as quiet a tone as she can and still have Jaskier hear her. “The Brotherhood won't do anything. They've seen Cintra as a lost cause for decades, and I doubt even Tissaia de Vries herself can talk them into stopping the destruction.” She looks up through the mirror again. “Some of us have already started planning what to do if the Nilfgaardians continue north.” She stares at him, and after a breath he understands. 

“Sodden Hill.” The gateway to the north, and the only way over the Yaruga big enough to support an army. 

Triss nods. “I don't know how many mages will come, but...” Under her beautiful gold silk robe, her shoulders settle into a stronger line. “We'll need help. I've already talked to Foltest – he'll move his army South as quickly as he can, but I fear he won't be able to move fast enough to meet them as they pass over the bridge-”

“I can't promise anything,” Jaskier interrupts. He's not a Mother, and there's only so much power he can wield without coming into conflict with them. 

“I know,” Triss responds immediately. “All I wanted was for you to pass the message on to the Mothers. And I want them to understand – this is not the Brotherhood asking. It's just me.”

 _And you're a daughter of one of the Mothers,_ Jaskier almost says, but that's not supposed to be something that he knows. Hells, the only reason he's aware of it is because he'd seen Triss' mother unmasked once. They look startlingly alike.

His stomach churns, but he nods. “I'll tell them.”

Triss exhales a long slow breath. “Thank you, Jaskier. I know things aren't going exactly well in Oxenfurt.”

Jaskier feels his mouth twist in an unpleasant expression. “Well, you know how it goes.” He perks up as a thought occurs to him. “If you could, by chance, slip a poison into Stregabor's drink at the conclave we'd be much obliged. I know the bastard is the one responsible for the crackdowns on, and disappearances of, bards breaking the so-called 'Tenants.' He's got a weaselly minion I've caught a few glimpses of – wears a lot of _sand_ and _neutrals_ , for Melitele's sake, and I'd be willing to bet my second-best lute he's the one who's been tracking artifacts and making them 'vanish.' We've had to start scouting safer locations for some of the older, Elven-made pieces because that fool keeps on looting sacred burial sites. We've been damned lucky the druids are so willing to help with the curse-breaking and laying the disturbed dead back to rest.”

Triss grimaces. “Unfortunately, Stregabor knows just how much I dislike him, and he's not stupid enough to let me close to his wine.” She pauses. “I think I remember hearing that Yennefer was close to Istredd – at least, that's who I'm assuming you mean when you refer to Stregabor's minion? And they had some sort of falling out. If I can ever get in contact with her, Yennefer would probably be willing to... assist in making his life more complicated.”

Jaskier fights to keep his face blank at the mention of Geralt's ex-lover. “Any help on that front would be appreciated.” He glances away from the mirror to peer out towards the sun. “I should probably see about getting in to speak to the Mothers.” 

He turns back in time to see Triss nod. “Thank you, Jaskier.” She hesitates, then says, “I'll let you know if by some miracle the Brotherhood decides to step in. Please keep this mirror on you whenever possible, and contact me after you've spoken to the Mothers.”

“I shall. Good luck, Mistress Merigold.”

“The same to you, Master Jaskier.”

The Mothers listen to what Jaskier learned from Triss and dismiss him to talk amongst themselves.

That evening, Triss contacts him through the mirror. The Brotherhood have chosen to do nothing.

Jaskier spends hours tossing in bed that night, and when he finally sleeps he dreams.

_It is dark. His names ring through his head_

_JaskierJulian_

_He stands in the fog, and then it lifts and he is in the plains and the sky is devastatingly beautiful and there is a tree-_

_Taedh, the tree says._

_He can't move, until he can. He drops to his knees, his gaze locked on the tree. “W-what?”_

_Tell your hen maithreacha they need only ask._

When he wakes, he finds a sprig of something in his hand that he's only seen pictures of in old botany books. Conynhaela, he thinks it's called. It's an herb only found in one place.

Brokilon.

He lingers long enough to pull on some breeches and a chemise before yanking his door open and bolting down the hallways. The slaps of his bare feet echo down the halls as he runs harder than he has in a very long time.

Two weeks after Jaskier sees Geralt, Oxenfurt receives word of Cintra's destruction. Things happen quickly after that. 

Birds of all shapes and sizes fly through the city and the college ground, all silent as death. Jaskier sees an albatross land clumsily on the balcony of one of the higher towers; a large flock of sparrows take up residence with the nightingales after delivering their news. Pigeons ranging from the pure white of racing birds, to the drab speckled grey of most of Oxenfurt's home flock to the midnight blueblack of the birds from Lyria, settle in one of the largest parks. Crows from the northern territories perch on the lamp posts of the main thoroughfare, and Jaskier even spots some of the brightly colored lapwings only bred in Beauclair perched outside the Headmaster's window. 

It's almost a relief to return to his rooms to find a nightingale waiting on his desk. After the eerie silence of the other birds, Jaskier feels his shoulders relax when the little bird flits over to his offered hand and chirps in a friendly manner. He murmurs a greeting to the little fellow, then strokes his free hand down its head and back. 

The bird immediately starts to speak. “We travel to Sodden by the shadows. Be there in a week's time. Tell no one.” The bird pauses, then says flatly, “Prepare for war.”

Jaskier hisses out a breath then takes the little bird to the window to send it on its way. 

He goes to his wardrobe and fumbles in it for a moment before pressing a knot at the back. A panel shifts and reveals a set of simple hooded charcoal grey robes with soft leather boots dyed to match. On the same peg hangs a blank porcelain mask from a black ribbon.

For all that it's been a decade since he wore any of the gear, he knows they will still fit perfectly.

He leaves the robes and mask where they are and, after carefully making sure the hidden compartment shuts fully, he exits the room. He hesitates, thinking.

Of all the weaponry he can use, he suspects that Filavandrel's lute will be the most effective. The tricky part will be lifting it from the Hall of Historical Musical Instruments with none the wiser. 

Ah, well. With the amount of chaos in the air, Jaskier doubts anyone would notice a dusty old lute missing from a display cabinet. And if anyone does comment, he brought the damned thing to the college to begin with. 

He's just... borrowing it back. 

Although, honestly, with all the other artifacts he and the other Nightingales were removing to safer locations, the lute would probably just be considered one of many to have disappeared.

He takes a slow breath then heads determinedly down the corridor.


	2. Sound the Horn and Call the Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Jaskier exhales a soft breath. “I don't know what the Mothers have done, but I doubt I'm the only bard on the way. We have many capable fighters and people who can be effective in other ways." He tries to keep the worry out of his voice, but he's not sure how effective he is. He hates to tell her this, but - "I just don't know when the others will arrive. I haven't received any word since I left Oxenfurt.”_
> 
> _Triss sighs. “We just have to have hope.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I tricked myself - again - into thinking that there would only be two parts. This is the setup for the battle, and the next is going to be the actual legit fighting.
> 
> Title for this chapter is from Alexander James Adams' (previously known as Heather Alexander) March of Cambreadth, which will play a critical role in the next part.
> 
> Also, thanks continue to be directed towards my sister, who is still willing to wrangle my run on sentences and force me to make more sense.
> 
> Sidenote: I have taken a LOT of liberties with the ideas of alternative magic users in this. I am not even trying to follow much in the way of book/show/game lore, so sticklers beware.

Jaskier manages to make his way to Sodden within a week, keeping to quieter roads and not stopping to play at any tavern or inn along the way. He wears subdued clothing (which he hates) but when the Mothers order a Nightingale to travel by the shadows, he had damned well better. He sleeps among refugees fleeing to the north and keeps Filavandrel's lute carefully covered, as it would bring the wrong sort of attention if spotted. He eats and drinks sparingly, and thanks his lucky stars that his feet are accustomed to long journeys. 

The presence of Nilfgaard becomes more noticeable as the roads get harder to pass. Jaskier starts dipping away from the easier tracks and takes to the forest. There's too much activity near the roads for most creatures to want anything to do with it. The area has been over-hunted, so he passes like a ghost, bothering nothing and being bothered by nothing in return. 

He assumes any other Nightingales are all going different routes; some will be calling in favors with mages to portal them to a location, others will be travelling via carriage or caravan or by horse or by foot. He doesn't need to know, therefore he doesn't, and that's fine by him. He just wishes he knew how many were going to meet him.

Triss keeps him up-to-date through the little mirror, and her first news is disheartening. Neither Temeria nor Kaedwen will make it to Sodden Hill before the Nilfgaardians.

The next day, however, she reports that sixty-some-odd mages will travel to the old keep at Sodden Hill and hold the Nilfgaardians off until help arrives. “I don't know how many favors the others have managed to call in,” she says, looking worried. “To be honest, I do not know if anyone even _has_ , or if they think that sixty mages is enough.”

Jaskier exhales a soft breath. “I don't know what the Mothers have done, but I doubt I'm the only bard on the way. We have many capable fighters and people who can be effective in other ways." He tries to keep the worry out of his voice, but he's not sure how effective he is. He hates to tell her this, but - "I just don't know when the others will arrive. I haven't received any word since I left Oxenfurt.”

Triss sighs. “We just have to have hope.”

When he arrives at the keep, it is evening and there are people... celebrating? Passing through the huge stone archways of the fortified walls, he sees bonfires, and hears terrible singing and even spots several couples paired off in the shadows. He wanders further up the track to the keep, looking around in bafflement.

He spots Triss eating an apple and speaking to Yennefer near the main entrance. He feels something unpleasant slide through his stomach. Geralt is not with the violet-eyed mage, however, and after a moment the two women part and Triss spots him. Within a breath they are striding to each other.

“You made it,” she sighs in relief. She switches her apple to her off hand and they clasp arms, and then she pulls him into a hug. He relaxes into her hold and inhales the scent of herbs in her hair. 

He draws back and gestures with his chin at the drunken revelry around them. “What the hell is going on?” 

Triss' mouth goes a bit taut. “I'm honestly not sure. One person says it's to raise morale, another says it's to make sure Nilfgaard doesn't get the ale, yet a third says that we're all dying tomorrow anyway, so why not enjoy the night.” 

Jaskier snorts. “And I say a hangover tomorrow will mean shitty fighting when Nilfgaard arrives.” 

Triss shrugs. “Our scouts say they're about a day away from here, so we have a little more time to get settled. We mages arrived this morning, and that seems to have boosted the morale of the refugees here.” She waves him towards the entrance and he offers her his arm. She smiles and tucks her hand into the bend of his elbow.

Triss shows him the preparations, and Jaskier has to admit that things look... not entirely terrible. He doesn't really trust the bottles full of the explosive little rocks, but surely they have something in place to keep from losing all of them to a well-placed jostle of a table. 

As they start climbing stairs to see the fortifications, Jaskier keeps craning his head around, looking for any familiar faces. 

He sees no Nightingales that he's met before. All he sees are refugees garbed in torn and dirty rags and ornately-dressed men and women that must be mages.

Jaskier has been asleep for less than an hour in his little nook away from the majority of people when the screaming starts.

He jolts awake. There is light where there shouldn't be, and at first he thinks the sun is about to strike the world when he realizes that it's a

giant

fucking

fireball

headed straight for the keep. 

He has a moment to hiss in a breath and grope for Filavandrel's lute when an invisible force catches the ball. He hears a scream he has heard in his nightmares of the djinn – Yennefer. She must have caught the damned thing. 

The fireball wavers for a moment, then it is sent flying away from the keep. A split second later, it explodes in the air. 

Jaskier flinches back from the sound and the brightness, his hand landing on the lute's neck. 

He clutches the instrument and strains his memory, trying to think of any song that would help, either by strengthening the mages who will catch the balls or -

He hears Yennefer screaming for the refugees and mages to get up.

He sees the second fireball start to glow at a great distance, then it is hurtling closer at a terrifying speed. 

He's out of time. No words come to him, but Filavandrel's lute is not some mere trinket. He starts to strum a hard challenging chord and then it's as if the lute possesses him, choosing the fingerings without his conscious thought. He hears another mage scream as they catch the fireball, and he focuses on that mage, focuses his will and the unknown song on that one person, that one soul that he feels crumbling under the pressure of something more powerful than they are. The mage's spirit buckles, then gains strength from the music. With another shriek, this time one of triumph, they manage to fling the second fireball away in time. 

The lute stops playing when the second fireball explodes. 

Jaskier feels the world take in a breath.

He waits.

Nothing happens.

He keeps waiting, as does everyone else who can stay awake.

By the time dawn has arrived, Jaskier's eyes ache and he knows that many of the mages and refugees have fled. He heard many footsteps throughout the night, some stealthy, others not so silent – people were retreating across the bridge. 

He doesn't blame them. He considers following them, but he knows that he wouldn't be able to face... anyone, up to and including himself, if he does. 

That doesn't change the fact that he is very, very afraid.

The almost buoyant mood from the evening before is completely gone, and the faces that Jaskier sees now are pale and tight with fear and anger. The remaining mages are moving with less arrogance today, and at least a few of them are obsessively counting the bottles of explosive rocks in the courtyards and the quivers of arrows on the battlements. The few children left in the keep cling to adults or stare into space; none play today. 

Jaskier thinks that if Geralt were here, he'd say the place stank of fear.

And then something in the air changes. Figures begin to emerge from the nearby forest. 

They do not wear Nilfgaardian black. They wear the charcoal grey robes and porcelain masks that match what he still has buried in his satchel. As they move closer, others step out of the forest that are not dressed as the Nightingales – one group wears the bark armor of the dryads of Brokilon. Another is dressed in Skelligan berserker gear – very little armor, the hides and the skin of the berserkers themselves all scarred with hard use. They could be cousins to witchers, Jaskier thinks nonsensically. He also sees what have to be druids, as they wear thick robes made of pelts and have staves slung over their shoulders. 

Jaskier hears screams from the refugees, and then he hears Triss' voice echo unnaturally loud through the keep.

“Fear not! They are allies! Do not draw your weapons!”

He sees her run out of the keep and one of the Nightingales that looks no different from the rest breaks from the front, moving more quickly. Triss and the Nightingale stop within feet of each other, and Jaskier can see how Triss wants to hug her mother, but she controls herself in time and just offers her hand. 

The Mother Nightingale reaches out her own hand and they clasp forearms. The Mother communicates silently with her daughter, and Triss nods. As she turns back towards the keep, Jaskier ducks away from the arrow slit he was peering out of and goes for his bag and his lute. 

Clearly, he missed the rally point. Something must have gone awry, but his compatriots are here and he must meet them as well. 

Few people notice the fog starting to drift through the forest closest to the Nilfgaardian encampment. 

The Mother accepts Jaskier's apologies with a wave of her hand. 

Her voice whispers in his mind, and he learns that the nightingale that was meant to inform him of the rally point had been waylaid by Nilfgaardians. One rough hand to the bird and it lost its form and returned to the chaos from whence it came, so at least the knowledge it carried never made it to unfriendly ears.

He mourns the little spirit for a moment, but then he is told to assist the skalds from Skellige in setting their instruments up. 

There are two of the skalds, and they both are carrying damned enormous cases that thrum with magic. One of them looks familiar.

“Show us to the highest point,” Draig Bon-Dhu says, and Jaskier has to stifle a surprised laugh at seeing the little shit – now grown – that had been so obnoxious with his bagpipe at Princess Pavetta's betrothal feast. Of course, with his mask on the skald doesn't recognize him, so Jaskier bows politely and leads him – and the other enormous fellow with the equally enormous case up to the keep. 

He pauses when he arrives at the open top of the tallest tower and watches the two skalds open the cases with sharp words in the Skelligan tongue. The wind damn near rips the lids out of the skalds' hands. They let out very different curses and wrestle the lids of the cases down and fully open. exposing a bagpipe so ancient it looks like its pipes will turn to dust at the slightest pressure, and an equally ancient bass drum whose hide looks to be rotting away. 

Jaskier shudders with the power he can feel now in the instruments, no longer stifled by their cases. He turns his eyes away from them, running his bare hands over the lute strap Geralt gave him. The soft, familiar magic of the sigils is a welcome distraction from the thunderous magical power of instruments that feel like they were made before the Conjunction of the Spheres.

He works to focus on something physical rather than magical, and his surroundings will do nicely. He is, after all, on the tallest point in the keep. What can he see in the distance? 

He moves close to the edge of the roof and looks over the open land around him. There is mist in the direction of the Nilfgaardians. He turns towards the river Yaruga and catches a glimpse of another mist, this one different, rising from the waters. He cranes his head, peering at the Yaruga, then he hisses a swear as vile as the skalds had and bolts for the stairs. 

The mist has risen to the height of the bridge, and by the time he has arrived in the courtyard there are figures on the bridge walking towards the entrance to the keep. 

He hesitates as he sees the Mother and the woman who has to be Tissaia de Vries walk down the path to meet them. Curiosity overwhelms him, and while his common sense tries to tell him to return to the keep he creeps closer instead until he can hear the Mother and Tissaia greet the figures from the mist. They are women, he can now see, dressed in clothes one would expect to find on a sailor but for the fact that they are the colors of mist and a stormy sea. Their hair is snarled into locks the color of sea salt, and their skin is nearly the same color. All ten move as if with one body, one mind. 

The women from the mist – Jaskier thinks they may be sea witches from Skellige – speak as one. “Greetings and well met, sisteren of the Continent. We are the Sisteren of the Islands, and once we would have never left our seas. Less than a moon ago, a storm of trickery and magic was laid on five of our sisteren with the fifty ships promised to Eist Tuirseach. When it passed, none but one of our sisteren remained alive. The sea sang her home, and she told us what had happened.”

The sea witches pause and look down. Tissaia says something soft enough that Jaskier can't hear, and the witches nod in acknowledgement. 

They look up and speak again. “Our sisteren are a score and seven in number, and since before the Conjunction this has been so. We know when the mortal bodies shall die, and always we are able to prepare the return of our sister.”

Their voices go harsh as storm-tossed waves against an unclimbable cliff. “We did not know that we would lose four and one sisteren. It was not seen.”

All ten clench their right fists and bring them to their chests, beating once hard on their sternums. “Our wounded sister gave her last breath to bring the Skelligan warriors and our selves through what you call a portal, and we will see the trickster mages responsible for our sisteren's deaths brought to our justice.” 

The Mother cocks her head, speaking to the witches with no sound.

She then turns her head towards Jaskier and her presence in his mind overwhelms him for a moment.

He gets the message and leaves the women to discuss their plans. 

The mist from the Nilfgaardians creeps closer. 

More allies appear – druids riding wyverns come down the canyon cradling the Yaruga. 

Jaskier feels his chest lighten when he recognizes them. These folk, they are here by his calling. 

He and Geralt helped them thirteen years ago when a cursed wyvern was planted like a cuckoo egg amidst their winged companions. The beast itself had died when it landed, but it infected the wyverns nearby and spread throughout the flock like wildfire. It would have destroyed them all within a month had Jaskier and Geralt not been travelling close enough to hear the cries and screams of the sick. Over the course of three days, Jaskier had infiltrated a neighboring town and gotten a confession from the mayor. Then Geralt had tracked and... persuaded the mage employed to destroy the hexed object keeping the sickness going. 

They had been unable to save all of the wyverns, but enough had survived that the druids had offered them all that they had as payment. Geralt claimed some special ingredients he normally paid out the nose for, and Jaskier decided on a favor in the future, with the promise he would only call it in if the situation was dire. 

Jaskier definitely thinks that this situation is closer to 'dire' than not.

As the sun approaches its zenith, Jaskier comes across Triss near the privies. The smell is ghastly, and the mask he still wears does nothing at all to protect his nose. 

Despite the mask, she knows who he is, and she tells him that the priestesses of Melitele have arrived at the other side of the bridge, and are setting up tents for healing the wounded. She adds that two witchers have shown up. 

“Not your witcher,” she says. “Not even from Geralt's school. The older one is a woman, I think, and I heard someone call her Cat. That's one of the other schools, right? I feel like I heard something about them being a disgraced school, but we'll take all the help we can get.”

“And the other?”

Triss smiles. “I believe his name is Coën, and he's from Griffin school. Very polite – I can't tell if he's grilling Tissaia for information or flirting with her, to be honest.” She tilts her head and looks steadily at Jaskier. “Very different from Geralt.”

Jaskier hums in response, refusing to rise to the bait. “I wonder how they knew to come. Did someone send word for them?”

“Well, there were a couple of big damned fireballs flying through the air last night. Seems like that would be enough of an attention-grabber, eh, bard?”

The rough, barely-accented voice comes from nowhere, and both Triss and Jaskier jump. The bushes they're standing beside shift and a figure dressed in the black leathers of a witcher comes into view, adjusting his? her? belts. The face is hidden from the bridge of the nose down by a scarf but what is visible is leathery and a few shades darker than Triss. They have a wild nest of short silvery white hair that looks to be more due to age than mutation. A medallion hangs from the witcher's neck, so old the image is almost indecipherable. 

They pull a cloth that smells like lemons out of a pouch, wipe their hands, and nod to Triss. “I am, in fact, female and called Cat.” Her eyes – paler by several shades and more obviously slitted like a feline than Geralt's – crinkle in what must be amusement.

Jaskier watches Triss' face flush gently. “Mistress Witcher, I meant no disrespect-”

Cat clicks her tongue. “No worries, lass. I know what the rumors are for my school. But I'm from before all that,” she makes a vague gesture, “idiocy and nonsense happened, and I don't have any connections with the latest incarnation.” She tucks the cloth back in her pouch and the emotion leaves her voice as she finishes, “All I wish to do is walk the Path 'til I die a good death.”

“'Die a good death,'” Jaskier repeats thoughtfully. “Mistress Cat, if we survive the battle, would you be willing to tell your tale to a humble bard?”

“'Humble' is it lad?” Amusement enters the witcher's eyes again, and Jaskier wonders if the curtains in her eyes are the emotions or the lack thereof. “I've known many bards, and not a damn one of them could be called _humble_.” She tilts her head and studies him for a moment. “Mayhaps, little bard, I'll tell you my story. Or,” she adds, “what I remember of it.” 

Before Jaskier could ask about her comment, the ground rumbles as the ancient drum is stirred.

“That's the warning,” he says, then bows to both the witcher and the mage. “Ladies, we should probably go to our places.”

“Aye,” says Cat, her eyes gleaming. Jaskier is suddenly relieved he can't see the rest of the witcher's face. He suspects her smile is terrifying. “It's been a while since I've gone to war. Let's see how it's done in these 'modern' times.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in case anyone was wondering what Jaskier was playing when he was supplementing that other mage's magic against the fireball... my brain was very insistent on the opening of Heart's Crazy on You. Y'know, the twangy bit, not the strummy bit. Why brain, why.


	3. How Many of Them Can We Make Die?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When he looks back at the Battle of Sodden, Jaskier will only remember bits and pieces from the first act, before he gets blown out of his and Yennefer's tower._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See new chapter number. -mad laughter- -also sobs- The last chapter is COMPLETE and will be up soon. And if anyone remembers my sidenote from last time, about veering wildly off from canon? Yeaaaah... so... Since it IS canon that there is a multiverse (and also the Nilfgaardians are fucking creepy cultists and this would explain SO MUCH), and that summoning from other worlds is a THING… Here, have some Lovecraftian elements that just slipped into my Witcher bathtub. I will seriously, probably write a sidestory that goes into detail as to what the flying fuck Fringilla did, but that will be for another time as this is Jaskier's tale, not hers. Title once again from Alexander James Adams' March of Cambreadth, though the link will be to his spiritual ancestor Heather Alexander's version with the Wicked Tinkers. Also, feel free to start listening to Tricky's Excess when you get to the line 'When the skalds notice' – it feels appropriate.  
> Also, I am so grateful my sister continues to make sure these words make sense. And I've got a good friend checking it over as well, so wooo betas!

When he reaches the lookout tower, Jaskier feels his stomach plummet.

Of course. He had been told he would be paired with the mage that would be the main communication point between the sorcerers, channeling the song's power into them and any other nearby allies. With his luck being what it is, he doesn't know why he's surprised to see Yennefer of Vengerberg herself leaning against the railings and peering out to the past and future battlefield.

He feels her presence knock at his mind. When he refuses to allow her entrance, the protections woven into the robes and the mask hold firm against her probing.

“I do not like not knowing who I have at my back,” she says, turning to look at him. She stares hard into his eyes, and after a moment she continues, “but I feel as if we have met before. Your energy is familiar.”

Jaskier... debates with himself. Before he can decide how to respond, she uses a small blast of chaos and flings him against the badly-constructed wall of the lookout tower. The whole damned structure shakes, and his back arches painfully around Filavandrel's lute.

“Name yourself, Bard.”

Jaskier snarls internally but lifts his hand to his mask. He hesitates then pushes the mask up until it sits upon his head, his face revealed. “Hello, Yennefer.”

“You,” she spat, her hands clenching by her sides. She releases him and he shakes his robes free of old dust and dirt. “What the hell are you doing here? Where's Geralt?”

“Not here, obviously,” he snaps back, not willing to hide the bitterness in his voice. “Thanks ever so for leaving such a mess in your wake last year, by the way. I do appreciate being the proverbial whipping boy you left behind for Geralt to take his emotions out on.”

She scoffs out a laugh. “Oh, did the witcher throw a tantrum after I left? I can't imagine why he thought he had the right – it was his fucking fault in the first place. Tell me-”

The warning rumble of the ancient drum sounds again, and the two glare at each other for a moment before returning to their posts.

The mist from the Nilfgaardians reaches the edge of the forest and starts to cross the open land around the outer walls of the keep. The sound of marching from the approaching army is just barely heard over the rhythm of the great drum.

Yennefer's attention is fully on the land visible from her tower. Now that he's regained his temper, Jaskier feels only relief. This is not the time to take salt to barely-healed wounds.

He settles the mask back over his face but releases the near-invisible catch that keeps the lower portion attached to the rest. When he tugs the piece free, cool air brushes his mouth and chin, drying the sweat collected on his upper lip. Tucking the detached part of the mask into one of the small pockets in his robes, he breathes deeply through his mouth, enjoying the lack of restriction.

He pulls Filavandrel's lute around to his front and strokes the strings, waiting. At one hip rests a small, compact crossbow with a slim quiver of bolts hanging beside it. The crossbow is old, worn, and has served its purpose over many years, but today he feels uncomfortable with its presence. Jaskier suspects he will be using it more today than he's used it since it came into his possession.

He watches Yennefer at the front of the tower for a moment and sighs. With her attention forward, he settles close to the stairs to keep an eye out in her blind spot.

As soon as the mist reaches the crumbling turrets of the outer walls, something... changes. The acrid stink of forbidden magic that created the mist mostly dissipates and is replaced by the smell of the sea. The mist thickens into a true, dense and heavy fog. It starts to sweep back towards the Nilfgaardians like a high tide rising to cover a beach. Only a small fragment of the original taint, still a distance away, keeps travelling towards the keep. It arrows through the more natural sea fog, going at about the pace of a man's quick steps.

When he looks back at the [Battle of Sodden](https://youtu.be/a3Jv-d80H1g), Jaskier will only remember bits and pieces from the first act, before he gets blown out of his and Yennefer's tower.

He will remember the scream of the bagpipes joining the drum, then the overwhelming voice of the Mother on the roof with the skalds, singing an ancient march that sinks into the marrow of all who hear it. And he will recall standing in the tower, joining Filavandrel's lute to the rhythm and directing the amplifying abilities of the song towards Yennefer, then aiming the magic towards the archers on the nearby wall.

The sounds of wyverns bugling a challenge will echo in his ears for years to come. The battle cries of the berserkers as they race into the forests will not.

He will remember Yennefer shouting curses at one of the mages – Vilgefortz – who left his group of fighters behind when he portaled to the leader of the Nilfgaardian troops. Her ordering him to reserve his chaos, and when she fell silent Jaskier knowing that the mage had to be dead.

He will remember the boom of the gate as it's blown open. He won't know what the boom was, only that it occurred.

He won't remember the screams as a portal opens up in the middle of the gatehouse and a shower of arrows erupt from it, followed by shrieks of surprised pain. He won't remember the sight of several of the berserkers trying to jump through the portal, only for severed parts to be left behind when the portal snaps shut again.

He is too far away for that.

He will remember Yennefer shouting that the gatehouse has been breached.

He will remember her screaming for other mages and her obvious relief when she heard from the majority of them. The feeling of helplessness when she begged to hear Tissaia's voice, to no response. He will remember his fingertips going numb as he continued to play, even though part of him actually wanted to comfort the woman that had healed him and caused him so much pain.

Nothing truly crystalizes in his memory until the second act begins with the mage in blue – Sabrina – bounding up the stairs with an arrow in her hands and a maniacal grin on her face.

At first, Jaskier thinks that she's there to cover Yennefer's post for a few minutes. When she's close enough that he can see her expression, he starts to think something's wrong.

When she tries to stab him with a fucking arrow, though, he _knows_ that there's something malignant at work. He blocks the arrow with his lute and manages to free a hand for the crossbow. He shoots a bolt at her, but only manages to hit her shoulder. The bolt doesn't slow her down in the slightest; before he can dodge away again, she throws him into Yennefer.

Yennefer manages to catch herself and Jaskier against the rickety railing but when they turn towards their attacker, the blue-clad mage is striding towards them like a woman on a mission.

Jaskier manages to hiss out part of the march that still booms through the air - “Make their yellow blood run cold”, - and prays to the muses that the lyrics can be used to instill some fear, something to distract the mage bearing down on them. He sees the magic hit her like a blow. Her eyes go wide and terrified, but her face is still locked in a rictus of a grin, her body moving mechanically towards them.

“Sabrina!” Yennefer shouts, casting her hands forwards as she tries something with her chaos. The other mage – definitely Sabrina, then – staggers but keeps moving forward. She raises her arrow in her fist, and Jaskier raises his lute to block and -

The world _explodes_ , and suddenly Jaskier is falling and he sees splinters raining towards him and then he is caught by magic – it has to be Yennefer's chaos, saving him again, and she lands beside him with more grace than is warranted, but the other mage -

Sabrina lands with a sickening crunch.

Yennefer staggers to Sabrina, and Jaskier watches as she kneels and strokes the other mage's hair, tucking it behind her ear. She snarls out an invective and pries something blackened and wriggling from Sabrina's ear and Jaskier feels his gorge rise at the sight.

Yennefer flings the thing into the air and explodes it messily with her chaos before hunching back over her friend.

Jaskier moves closer to the mages, keeping an eye on their surroundings and his hands busy loading another bolt into his crossbow. Debris litters the area between the tower and the outer walls, and he sees bodies. There are a lot of wounded, possibly dead lying nearby, and he doesn't know what happened to cause the explosion but he knows they're not safe.

They are in the silence that occurs after unexpected disaster and before the screams of the wounded, so he can hear Yennefer whispering her friend's name, and the weak response.

“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” Jaskier hears Sabrina say before she passes out. Or, at least he hopes she just passed out.

“Yennefer,” he rasps, trying to catch her attention. He glances down long enough to meet her eyes before continuing to scan their surroundings. “We need to move. She needs to get to the healers.” He looks around at all the other bodies. “Can your magic carry them?”

“Them?” Yennefer asks, then Jaskier hears her hiss in a breath. “I think I can. Or at least move those that are still alive. First, though-” she pauses, then speaks clearly to the other mages. “Can anyone hear me? The gatehouse has been breached.” She hesitates as if listening to something, and Jaskier feels the hairs on the back of his neck start to stand. His ears start to ring as if he's taken a blow to the head.

Something bad is coming.

He blinks and there's a woman standing a few yards away, dressed in a solemn light grey robe. She doesn't speak, completely ignoring Jaskier and keeping her attention fully on where Yennefer kneels. He can almost hear what the mage is saying, and something about the ringing in his ears and the pain in his head makes his teeth itch. He glances down at Yennefer, sees her look from her friend to the mage in grey.

She almost looks afraid.

The beating of the drum from the march suddenly reverberates through Jaskier's head, drowning out whatever the other mage was projecting, and he bares his teeth.

This other mage is an enemy.

Jaskier drops his crossbow, yanks his lute into position, and as his fingers automatically rake across the strings he snarls out, “How many of them can we make _die_?” putting everything he has into the lyrics.

The full force of the spell, which has been building and occasionally getting tapped by other bards during the battle, blasts through him. The ancient drum and bagpipes, the unending voice of the Mother, all the fear and fury and despair and heartache that Jaskier's been holding back for years, for _decades_ , it all rips through the air and hits the grey-clad mage so hard she actually flies through the air, hitting the wall several meters away.

She catches herself before she falls to the ground. She locks eyes with Jaskier for a split second, her face contorted with terror, then turns and flees through the shattered gate.

A heartbeat passes. Then two. No more enemies appear.

Jaskier wheezes in a breath and lets his trembling fingers drop from the strings. “Fuck,” he says shakily. He can't tell if it's exhaustion from the spell or just a sudden lack of an enemy attacking him, but he feels like a gentle breeze would knock him flat. He really, really wishes he had a flask of something to settle his nerves.

Yennefer lets out a weak laugh. “Well done, bard.”

As Jaskier looks down at her, Yennefer seems to regain some of her composure and glances around again. Her brows furrow, and she makes a small gesture. The ringing in Jaskier's ears abruptly vanishes, and he breathes more easily. He bends to pick up his crossbow when Yennefer starts to speak to the air again, repeating the message she'd said before the enemy mage showed her face.

“Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me? The gatehouse is breached. We need reinforcements and healers. Please,” and here her voice falters for a moment, “there are many wounded that need help, and more soldiers are approaching.”

When he looks up he sees her eyes focused on something near the broken gate. It's an arm. With no body nearby.

He stifles a gag. He spits, trying to remove the sour taste from his mouth, and then a voice is ringing in his mind.

_I am coming with my healers and stretchers. We will be there soon._

“Who was that?” Jaskier can't help but ask. He staggers to his feet then bends his knees to offer his forearm to Yennefer, years of courtly training kicking in. She actually accepts his help to rise from her crouch over her friend. Neither one comments on the fact that they're holding each other up, braced like two gwent cards forming an arch.

“I think that was the high priestess of Melitele. Nenneke is her name if I'm not mistaken. I've not had much contact with them in some time though, so someone else may be in charge now.”

Jaskier can tell that Yennefer isn't really paying attention to what she's saying as she surveys the damage from the explosions. She makes a sharp gesture with her free hand, the other still clutching his arm. A large chunk of what looks to be the gatehouse's flooring rises steadily and resettles in a clear area. There's a pair of children huddled together where it had been. They were clearly only saved by a large boulder they had taken cover beside.

Jaskier is coaxing the children away from the wreckage and closer to Yennefer and himself when he hears thundering footsteps from the direction of the keep. He turns them both to see several berserkers arrive.

The warriors immediately head out the splintered gate, keeping a look out for more invaders. Behind them come some of the dryads, and nearby a druid with her wyvern lands. The druid directs her mount to hook the clawed 'thumbs' of its wings around another heavy piece of timber, pulling it away from a quietly crying man's legs. More of their allies arrive, including a contingent of healers with their stretchers and knapsacks bulging with herbs and potions.

Yennefer directs the new arrivals to wherever she can sense life, nudging Jaskier in the direction she needs to point. He feels rather like a sentient crutch, but accepts his lot in life as he continues watching for more trouble. He hears Yennefer refuse a healer's assistance and continue communicating with the other mages and fighters still in the forest. It sounds like the fight is coming to a victorious end, but something still feels…

Off. His skin crawls and he thinks he smells something burning. He searches the grounds for what might be causing the feeling and the smell, but sees nothing. Then he registers the shadows moving oddly in the afternoon light.

He looks up.

“Yennefer?” he hisses, trying to catch her attention while also trying to stifle his rising fear. “Yennefer, what the fuck is that?”

He feels her hand go rigid on his forearm, then suddenly tighten like a griffon's talons. “That,” she says slowly, “looks like a very large portal.”

“And what is that... __thing__ that looks to be rolling towards us like a sickly sun?”

“If I were to hazard a guess, I would say it looks like a being from one of the Elder Spheres.”

“And what, exactly, does that mean?”

“It means, bard,” says a nearby voice. Jaskier glances down from the horror in the sky enough to see Tissaia de Vries, looking exhausted and dirty as she uses a man that looks like a witcher as her own sentient crutch. “That we have a great deal more to worry about than just Nilfgaardian soldiers. Now we also have to worry about the potential destruction of the Spheres.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says. He thinks, _Well, I guess this isn't the denouement after all_.

When the skalds notice the huge fucking rip in the sky, Jaskier forgives them for faltering in their playing. A moment passes, and the skalds and the Mother stop all together. The silence is heavy until the third act begins with the sound of mad laughter and Jaskier's splitting headache when the defenses in his robes and mask _shatter_.

 _I suppose I must thank you, little bard,_ the mage's voice thunders in his head. All of the fighters and healers on the field pause and look around. Clearly they had heard the voice as well.

A portal snaps open with a sickening sound, and out steps the mage in grey.

She looks... wrong. She is smiling, and something glowing shifts under the dark skin of her face. Occasionally her eyes blaze a sickly, poisonous yellow. Her robes look singed. She continues speaking, this time with only her mouth and not her mind.

“After all, if you hadn't managed to send me into a terror such as I've not experienced before, I never would have had what it took to open the way for the White Flame's Burning Father.”

“'Burning Father',” Jaskier mouths. He scans his memory for a creature called that, and comes up blank.

“Forgive me,” the mage says, nodding at Tissaia, “the rectoress would probably know him better as Cthugha, He Who Lives and Yet Burns.”

“Fringilla, you know that Goetia is banned for a reason,” Tissaia says, pushing her witcher crutch away and standing straight. “The beings in the Elder realms would destroy all of the worlds in all the spheres if given a chance.”

“Oh, but Rectoress, the Burning Father has no desire to destroy the world. He just wishes to make sure it is properly prepared for His Son's rule.” Fringilla cocks her head to the side. “Is that not what any king would do for his heir? And before you voice that party line of what is appropriate action for sorcerers, is guiding rulers not what the Brotherhood trains its sorcerers to _do?_ ” She says her last sentence with an unsettling sing-song, and Jaskier feels his skin crawl in revulsion.

“Rulers of _this_ sphere, Fringilla, and _only_ this sphere!”

Fringilla shrugs, still smiling that eerie smile. “You forgot to teach us that part, Tissaia.” A portal opens behind her, and Fringilla steps back towards it. “I hope to see you when you are reborn to the White Flame, Rectoress. You still have much that you could teach mages if you just stopped following those silly rules put in place by weak-minded fools.” She turns her head to look at Yennefer. “You as well, Yennefer. Know that any who choose to come to the White Flame will have an everlasting legacy, unmatched by any in time. Endless knowledge, endless power…" She nods in a significant manner at the violet-eyed mage. "You will be able to build a home and family the likes of which will be spoken in song for all time.”

 _Rude_ , Jaskier thinks. _What business does she have, speaking of songs?_

Luckily, before his mouth can run away with him, the mage steps back into her portal and is gone.

“When did Fringilla of all people get so fucking dramatic?” Jaskier hears Yennefer mutter. He stifles a mad little chuckle.

“Well, what's the plan now, mages?” Cat's voice comes from the other side of the gate. She and several other fighters stand there, visible now that the portal is gone. Some of those with her are wounded, others are just dirty and exhausted looking. Cat herself has so much gore caked on her that her leathers look mud brown rather than black, though her head – and bright hair – has somehow avoided the mess.

Tissaia says nothing for a moment, then glances at Jaskier. “May I borrow your crossbow, Master Bard?”

Jaskier hands it over, she clasps the head of the bolt for a moment, then points the crossbow to the sky and releases the bolt.

The bolt flies straight up, then explodes with a deep red tint.

“Our plan, Mistress Witcher, is to come together to make a new one.” Tissaia stares at the portal in the sky for a moment. “The only thing we can be grateful for is that the Great Old One is so far away that it will take some time to get to the portal. We must discover a way to close the portal before it gets through.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So since this is Jaskier's story and he didn't see the whole of the battle, I was a little limited as to how much of the thing I would be showing. I hope that it still came across okay.
> 
> As I said in the earlier notes, chapter 4 IS complete and is about to go under the knife as soon as I hit post. Expect to see the final chapter in a few days.


	4. We'll Go Down in History (Remember Me for Centuries)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ride the lightning, _he thinks_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god here we go. The final push. Chapter title NOT from the March this time, but the song is once again linked when it's needed. Actual chapter title is actually from -drumroll- Fall Out Boy's Centuries. Go on. Judge me. I dare ya. And for those concerned about the suprise!Lovecraft, don't worry - I don't plan on sprinkling any more gobbets of it than necessary for the Fringilla-and-Nilfgaardians subplot into my Witcher fic.   
> Chapter warnings for: the aftermath of a battle. Scars from torture (though no detail on said torture), a smidge of gore, and more than a sprinkling of agony. Also death of minor characters. Also Mad Science/Magic.  
> Thanks again to 'Neesan and S for the betaing and cheerleading.

“Right then,” Yennefer says ten minutes later as she perches on a small boulder, finally releasing Jaskier's forearm. She stretches out her legs, and for the first time he can see that something is wrong with the right one. 

He waves to catch the attention of a nearby cowled healer who isn't currently hauling a moaning body away to tend to her. The healer approaches and kneels at Yennefer's side. Their hands hover over the leg and glow faintly for a moment, searching for the damage, Jaskier assumes. 

Yennefer willfully ignores the healer's presence as she continues to speak. “What are the different ways to disrupt a portal?” 

Jaskier feels his gorge rise as he watches the healer slice up the mage's underskirt with some shears, exposing a wooden splinter that looks to be a foot long, deeply embedded just above her knee. He looks away, settling a few feet from her and beginning to do hand and wrist stretches. He hears a squelching sound from the pair's direction and swallows hard. He focuses very, very hard on those stretches. 

“Easiest way is to kill the mage responsible for it,” Cat says, sitting cross legged on the ground a few yards away. She picks at the buckles of her armor, dislodging what looks suspiciously like a finger. The fire before them decides that is the perfect time to pop and crackle loudly, so the wet plop of flesh hitting the ground is drowned out.

“Or overloading it with power,” Triss suggests, wearily leaning against Yennefer's boulder and sliding down it to settle with a soft groan on the ground.

“That is valid, Triss, though the cost for destroying a portal of this size would be… devastating. And the problem with killing the mage,” Tissaia says as she tosses a branch into the fire pit, “is that I don't think Fringilla is the one powering the spell any more.” She leans against a column of rock, brushing dust and dirt off of her face.

“Which means she has it bound to a focus item or, more unlikely, a location," another mage, this one in an elaborately-embroidered, high-collared robe says. She uses her telekinesis to pull a large broken beam over to the circle and sits down with a swish of her skirts. 

“Would it do any good to go through the portal and kill the thing before it comes through?” a druid asks, his legs sprawled wide as he sits leaning against his wyvern. His mount turns its head towards him, and he takes out a scrap of cloth and a metal probe to start cleaning its teeth. Its tail lashes irritably but it settles with a soft word.

Tissaia lets out a harsh bark of a laugh. “Sadly, Master Druid, that is not a possibility. On the other side of that portal is the cold emptiness of the space between the stars and the Spheres. No being from this world can travel there and live long enough to reach the creature, let alone kill it.”

“Is there some way to recognize the item powering the portal?” Coën – the witcher Tissaia had been using as a crutch – asks. He sits cross legged on the ground like Cat, his steel sword in his lap as he cleans it with care.

Cat hums thoughtfully. “If someone is willing to give us a ride up to the portal, a witcher may be able to catch enough of a scent of the magic to find it.” She pauses and lowers the scarf covering the bottom half of her face. Jaskier catches a glimpse of a horrendous scar on her cheek before she ducks her head to use her teeth to pry something out from between the lacings on her left bracer. She continues after spitting the thing to the side. “If, that is, we have a general location to search.” She pushes the scarf back up, unperturbed by the momentary silence at the uncovering of her face.

Jaskier shakes himself. He doesn't know if he wants Cat's story of how that scar happened, even if she remembers it. He pointedly continues as if he hadn't seen a thing. “The Nilfgaardian encampment on the other side of the forest,” he offers. He stretches his fingers out one more time before pulling Filavandrel's lute around from its place on his back to give it a quick look over. There is only a minor scratch from using it to block that arrow, and he stifles the urge to kiss the beautiful, hardy thing.

Yennefer clicks her tongue and considers. “That would be a place to start, at least.” She glances at the witchers. “It might be best if both of you caught the scent, that way we can check two locations simultaneously. Or perhaps to move more quickly through one location?” 

“Sensible,” Cat agrees, raising an eyebrow at the other witcher. 

Coën shrugs. "The mage - Fringilla, did you call her? - got the Rectoress and me in the face with some dimeritium. While I cannot use my signs, my swords are still at the ready." He flashed a smile. "As is my nose." 

Cat chuckles darkly and her eyes crinkle in amusement as she says, "We could also raid the bastards. It's not like they'd need the supplies if they're all dead."

Coën smiles at her. "Which would you prefer - hunting this artifact or collecting supplies?"

The older witcher laughs. "I'll find the thing. You have fun with the horses." She cocks her head and winks at the assembled group. "For some reason, they just don't like me."

The druid stops cleaning his wyvern's teeth and wearily stands, bracing himself on the creature. “I'll see who's in the best shape to be hauling witchers.” He nods to those assembled and with a tap to its hide, he and the wyvern walk towards the other druids.

Jaskier hears a whisper of movement nearby and turns to see the Mother on her perch of a massive piece of broken masonry. He shivers involuntarily; he hadn't noticed that she was there. Her voice echoes in his mind, and from how quickly the others turn they hear her as well. _We should set up a signal to let each other know who succeeds in destroying the focus. Then we can work together to destroy that._ She makes a gesture towards the portal.

Everyone glances up at the portal, and Jaskier can tell that the glowing thing is bigger than it had been last time he dared look. As night continues to fall, the light from the portal keeps the area from true darkness.

A word bubbles up from the recesses of his memory. _Eldritch_.

He shudders.

Jaskier only knows that the fourth act has begun and the witchers have succeeded in finding the power source when one of them sends up a red flare from the Nilfgaardian encampment. 

When he glances up towards the portal, he can no longer see the edges of the – what did Tissaia call it? a Great Old One? It is just a sickly orange light that looks like it's torn a burning hole in the night sky. Part of him wants to continue staring at the horrible sight, but he remembers Tissaia's warnings to everyone - 

_Looking too long on the Old One leads to madness._

He swallows hard and focuses on the drum starting to boom again. It is near deafening, being so close to the instrument but the erudite magic users were very specific in the formation of the spell's pattern. He looks around the strategic placement of bodies and wonders with a sick swallow how many will survive if the destruction of the focus isn't enough.

The scholarly mage types had argued until they settled on a ritual pattern that had the greatest chance for the survival of the participants. In it, most of the remaining magic users and bards stand. The bards are evenly spaced in a rough circle facing inward, with two magic users behind each of them. Every magic user, be they druid or mage or sorcerer, has a hand on the shoulder of the bard in front of them. For the spell to work, they will use the bards as vessels, with the bards sending the power forward into the inner pattern at a specific moment.

As he rolls his shoulders, Jaskier feels Triss' hand grasp his left shoulder with an affectionate squeeze while the strange druid on his right just holds on. He looks forward again, toward the inner section - a triangle consisting of the skalds with their ancient instruments and the Mother herself. And the person at the center of everything. 

Because, of course, who would be at the center of everything if not Yennefer of Vengerberg? 

She stands proudly at the center, staring a challenge at the portal. As the most powerful of the present mages and the least likely to get turned to ash from the undertaking, it was her responsibility to 'loose the arrow' as the Mother called it. 

[Faster this time, the bagpipe joins the drum and then the Mother thunders out a challenge.](https://youtu.be/a3Jv-d80H1g)

_Axes flash and broadsword swing_  
Shining armor's piercing ring  
Horses run with polished shield 

Jaskier and the other bards roar out the next lyrics with the Mother, and the mages – druids, sorcerers, anyone with a scrap of magic in their souls – around them pour their will, their chaos into the bards as if they were instruments themselves.

_Fight those bastards til they yield_

The portal... 

shudders. 

Cat must be attempting to destroy the focus artifact. 

The portal settles again, though it doesn't look as stable as it once did.

Of course it would be too easy if interfering with the artifact was enough to disrupt the damned portal.

The song continues. The Mother calls out her lyrics and as if they have been doing this for years the other bards respond in unison. 

The building chaos is a live thing that seeks to drown them all. It feels like something is putting pressure on him from the inside, like his skin doesn't fit properly. To distract himself Jaskier shifts his gaze to the other side of the circle and sees several folks waver, but the pattern holds. He swallows, turns his eyes back to the middle, and raises his voice with the others again. 

He remembers his first class on using bardic magic. The lecturer stood before a podium and expounded on the subject for far longer than Jaskier cared to think on, but one thing stood out the most:

“Where students of Ban Ard and Aretuza are taught to bottle lightning as a way of controlling chaos," the lecturer said, pretending to grab something from midair to emphasize his point, "a bard – any bard that wishes to be worth his or her salt – learns to _ride_ the lightning." He loosened his fist and turned the gesture into something more like he was cupping liquid. "We do not seek to tame it, we do not seek to control it – at best what we wish to do is guide it.” 

_Ride the lightning,_ he thinks. He trembles as the pressure continues to build. He feels like an overripe fruit, his skin ready to burst with the lightest touch.

“BARDS!” Tissaia roars from her place outside the ritual, and as one the bards in the inner circle throw their right hands forward towards the skalds and the Mother.

The pressure abruptly starts to drain away as power rips from Jaskier and he hears several voices raised in shrieks of terror and pain. He doesn't take his eyes from the trio before him, though he feels a moment of sickness wondering who has fallen. 

_Ride the lightning._

He focuses everything into the magic, into the spell, into the desire to destroy the portal threatening them. He feels the hand on his right shoulder clamp down like a griffin's claws about to rip him away. He hears Triss whimper softly, her hand on his left starting to shake. He feels his own life force draining from him, feels his flesh start to wither and collapse, and oh, Melitele preserve him, it _hurts_ \- 

Tissaia has been watching for the sign from the encampment, and she apparently sees it. “NOW!” she screams, and as one the skalds and the Mother direct the ocean of power they've all helped build straight

into

Yennefer.

The violet-eyed mage screams and suddenly Jaskier is back in that house with the angry djinn and he falters, then regains his control again.

_Ride the lightning,_ he thinks one more time.

Yennefer's screams hit a level he's never heard anyone reach before, and she sounds like she's in agony or in a paroxysm of pleasure, and from her explodes a barely-visible wave of chaos. 

It flies straight as an arrow to the portal, and blessed be all of the saints and any other deity willing to listen to Jaskier's prayers, the creature has still not breached it.

The wave of chaos strikes the portal, and with a thunderclap heard throughout the Continent it snaps closed.

A breath. 

Two.

Three.

Jaskier drops to his hands and knees as if his strings were cut. He closes his eyes, hearing others fall around him, hears Triss sobbing in breaths as if her heart's been broken. He hears nothing from the druid.

His head starts to _throb_ , and to ease the pressure he pries his mask off and presses his fingers to his temple. It doesn't help.

He opens his eyes. He looks behind, to his right. There's a pile of ash and clothes where the druid had stood. 

He swallows, looks to his left. Triss is alive, but she has crumpled to the ground like him. Her robes sit wrong on her shoulders, as if underneath them she is more bone than flesh.

He reaches out a hand to her and sees that it doesn't look much better. The last time he saw the bones of his wrist so clearly he was newly conscious after a month-long wasting illness that should by all accounts have killed him. Even in the light from the nearby torches and fire pits he can see that his skin is almost translucent. He thinks he sees the veins in his hand pulse with his heartbeat.

He ignores the vague nausea the thought inspires and presses his hand gently to Triss' shoulder. It feels as brittle as bird bones.

She has her hand pressed against her sternum, and as he watches she pulls a dagger from a sheath in her boot and shakily tries to cut her robes open at the chest. 

Healers descend on the exhausted magic users and bards, and as one kneels beside them Jaskier watches Triss succeed in tearing the robe open to expose her breastbone. 

There's a raw, open wound that stretches from just under her chin down to between her breasts. It looks like someone splashed acid on her, and yet it does not bleed. She shakes like she's crying and Jaskier realizes she's not making a sound except for wheezing gasps of air.

He tries to say her name. 

Nothing comes out. 

He tries again. Nothing. There's a raw ache in his throat, as if he's been singing - or screaming - for hours. 

Before he can panic, the Mother's voice sounds in his head. _Do not fear, my songbirds. Your voices are not permanently gone – the healers will supply you with tinctures and by morning's end you should be talking again._ Even her mental voice sounds drained.

Jaskier shudders and tries to pull Triss to him for comfort. She comes to him, and as he presses his lips to her now-brittle hair he hears Tissaia say something. 

It takes a moment, but when the words register he can't help but tighten his grip on Triss.

“Where's Yennefer? There's no- there's no ash where she was standing – where is she?”

He feels the panic strike Triss hard enough to make her shudder, and while she can't speak aloud she is still strong enough to scream into the space where thoughts reside.

_Yennefer?!_

Jaskier feels the other mages all start to cry out for her, aloud and in their minds. He tries to add his mental voice to it, even though he knows that telepathy has never been one of his gifts. His head _screams_ but he refuses to stop trying. 

Amidst all the voices in his head, he would swear for a moment he heard Geralt as well.

Something shifts in the air. He looks up, sensing something over his head. He can't see it, but -

Yennefer falls through the invisible portal from… somewhere, landing on him, Triss, and their attending healer. The healer – the only one who can make a sound – yelps with surprise and curses. 

For a rough moment, Jaskier wonders if a corpse has landed on them. Yennefer smells of something burnt to cinders, and nothing living should stink like that. 

Then she lets out a shuddering exhalation. Jaskier would let out a shriek of surprised terror if he could - the only sound that comes out is a whistled breath.

Tissaia is at their side in a heartbeat, motioning for another healer to check Yennefer over. They roll her off of her human cushions and when Jaskier sees her he has to swallow a tight lump in his throat.

The once-beautiful mage looks... ravaged by fire and sickness. Her eyes are closed, but sunken deeply in their sockets, and half of her face is marred by what look like burns. Her throat looks similar to Triss' but worse – charred so badly he thinks he can see the muscle underneath. Her hair – what there is left – is all but burnt away.

The healer calls for assistance and a stretcher. Before Jaskier can do much more than shiver in repulsed reaction, they whisk the burnt mage away. Tissaia follows on their heels.

He and Triss cling to each other. Eventually they stop crying.

Dawn is slow in arriving. 

In the darkness it's difficult to count the bodies, but Jaskier knows that there were fifteen piles of ash and clothing in the pattern. His heart is heavy when he thinks of those that gave up their lives to close that accursed portal. He won't know the full death count for some time, he thinks. There are many bodies in the forest, and while the majority are clearly going to be the corpses of enemies, someone should make a count.

By the time the sky has finally started to brighten, the allied fighters have started trickling in from the forest. Cat and Coën return, along with a wagon of supplies and a line of a dozen horses. They and other allies carry word that the few Nilfgaardians that survived and were able to walk or crawl away have done so. No one knows where the leader of the troops is, nor the mage Yennefer and Tissaia called Fringilla. 

From the other side of the bridge – where the priestesses of Melitele have their tents – comes the message that the armies of the north have been spotted. They are still a distance away, but the air among the wounded becomes a little lighter. 

There are oddly thick patches of fog still present in some spots in the forest though most have faded away. No one can locate the sea witches. When asked, the remaining berserkers shrug. “It is their way, when their sisters die,” one grizzled old warrior says, then drops the subject.

Jaskier can't quite work up the energy to be truly nosy, though it bothers him a bit how evasive the normally chatty Skelligan fighters are behaving.

He _also_ doesn't have the energy to begin a head count of those who died and who survived, but he sees a newly-healed Sabrina walking among the survivors with a scroll, writing names down. He makes a mental note to request a copy, as he knows that the historians at Oxenfurt would do quite a lot of things for such a list, as well as some sort of first-hand report. He doesn't feel capable of talking to a woman that tried to kill him at the moment, even if she was possessed by something. 

What he is capable of doing, however, is sitting by a fire pit with water constantly being boiled. It’s being used for drinking and cleaning wounds. Whenever possible he fills his waterskin with barely-cooled water and drains it dry before the pot has been refilled. He is _thirsty_ and he is not the only one – all of the folk that had a hand in closing the portal are in similar straits.

The tinctures prepared by the healers do wonders, and by the time high noon rolls around Jaskier's voice is mostly back. The unnatural dryness that affected all those that were part of the ritual is also fading. None of the surviving mages can lift so much as a leaf with their powers and the bards get blinding headaches if they try to sing or play with intent, but the healers swear that the effects will fade as they replenish their energies. 

Jaskier would like to know how long that will take, but no healer gives him a satisfactory answer. 

“Just rest,” one of them finally snaps. She is younger, and pretty in a quiet way, but her eyes are sunken with exhaustion. “Spend time with your loved ones and you'll recover faster. Go for a quiet walk with a friend, tell a story to some of the orphans, play something peaceful to soothe the wounded. You'll recover when you recover.”

He feels vaguely guilty for pestering the healer, but takes her advice in a roundabout way. 

He lays claim to two buckets of unheated water and tracks down his knapsack. He finds an empty room of the keep, strips and gratefully rinses off the worst of the dirt and filth with one of the buckets and a spare scrap of cloth. The soiled grey robes go into his knapsack and he starts feeling better as soon as he pulls on relatively clean smallclothes and his least dirty chemise. Of the few outfits he has in his bag, the midnight blue with the dove grey embroidery at the trim is the one that looks to be in the best shape, so on it and his most comfortable boots go and then off he goes to track down his friend.

Those with the most life-threatening injuries are resting in a nearby area of the keep, the healers unwilling to move them farther than strictly needed. He finds Triss there, sitting beside Yennefer's cot. She doesn't look like she has rested much since helping with the wounded, and still wears the stained and battered robe from the night before.

With some convincing he coaxes her away and stands – or, well, sits – guard while she rinses herself off in the empty room he had used. There is little that can be done for her robe, but he finds his sewing kit in his bag and asks anyway. She directs him to leave the neckline open; anything touching her neck and sternum has been burning like fire. He does the best he can to make the neckline even and leave an open area for the wound. When she offers her hand from around the doorway he hands it over. He hears rustling and a hum of satisfaction, and when she steps from behind the doorway she is smiling. 

“This works.” She drops a kiss on his forehead. “Thank you.” 

She offers her hand and he takes it, rising to his feet with a little groan. His knees pop and he can't help thinking that the entire experience in this cursed keep has been a reminder that he is no longer as young as he used to be. Ah, well. 

With the carefully-cultivated magic in his blood, he thinks he'll at least get at least a few more decades than an average human. _If_ he's smart and keeps from getting himself killed, that is. He does however know that slowed aging is not the same as halted aging; the ravages of time will still weaken him and make him creaky. 

He just hopes that most of his current creaks are a temporary affliction from magical exhaustion. 

After a short discussion about where to go, Triss decides that if they are going for a walk, it would be more efficient if they looked for ingredients. Herbs to reduce inflammation and combat sepsis, that sort of thing would be helpful for the healers. They leave the keep and head – slowly and with great caution for debris and their own weary bodies – towards the ruined gatehouse and the forest beyond. 

When they pass through the empty archway, a voice calls to them from overhead. Jaskier glances up and spots the witcher Coën perched on the wall above them. 

“Oh, hello!” Jaskier calls back. “Are you guarding us, kind Witcher?”

Coën smiles a bit and waves a hand before him in an 'eh' gesture. “It's more peaceful out here, and I might as well be of some use.”

Jaskier considers his response, and then nods. “Ah, yes. Too noisy up at the keep?”

“And rather,” the witcher pauses delicately, “pungent.”

At Triss' questioning look, he elaborates. “Witcher senses are more acute than a standard human. Sometimes they can be... overwhelming to the point of distraction.”

Jaskier hums thoughtfully. “I think that explains a great deal about how Geralt acts sometimes. And of course the stubborn bastard never actually told me this – I just thought he was perpetually grumpy.”

Coën peers down at him for a moment, then the light dawns. “You must be the bard that travels with him sometimes. I've heard your songs.”

Jaskier preens and carefully nudges his elbow into Triss' side. “He's heard my songs,” he says in a stage whisper.

Triss laughs at him. “But he didn't say he liked them, did he?”

At Jaskier's pout Coën laughs lightly. “I like them just fine. The song about coins gets stuck in your head until something hits it hard enough to knock it out, but it and the other ones you wrote have... made our Paths easier these past fifteen years or so.” He dips his head at Jaskier with a small smile. “So thank you, Master Bard.”

Jaskier beams up at the witcher. “Call me Jaskier.”

“Jaskier then.”

“If you have the time,” Jaskier starts, unable to resist, “I would love to hear any stories you would be willing to share.” He makes a disappointed face and continues, “Geralt is _terrible_ about giving me details.”

“I can try my best, but it will have to wait for another time.” Coën looks away from them and out down the path. “I hear someone approaching.” He cocks his head and listens.

Jaskier remembers a peculiar moment he'd had right after the portal closed and has a sudden flash of thought. The thought cements, and he just _knows_. His breath catches and bends over, starting to wheeze like he's dying. 

Triss smacks him hard on the back. “Jaskier?” she asks.

“Oh, gods,” he hisses, then starts cackling like a madman. “Oh my fucking luck. I know who it is. People-” he chokes again on his laughter. “People linked by destiny will always find each other. Because of fucking course, who else could it be coming up this particular path at this particular time?"

And, at the furthest point visible on the pathway up to the keep, he and Triss spot several figures.

A chestnut horse with a pale girl on her back walks up the path. A tall, broad-shouldered man with white hair, dressed all in black walks at their side. On his shoulder sits a bundle of feathers, and above his head several other bundles of feathers wheel around, tweedling with unmistakable glee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, there will be more :D

**Author's Note:**

> Magdalena's spell is, of course, from The Amazing Devil's Not Yet/Love Run.
> 
> Elder/Irish translations:  
> Taedh - Bard  
> hen - Old  
> maithreacha - Mothers
> 
> Brace yourselves for the next part, folks, because I have a LOT of opinions about how the Battle of Sodden Hill went down. And I'mma FIX it.


End file.
